Book Review – River by Ryen Lesli

A few fun facts about Ryen Lesli

She haunts Twitter as “The Witch”
She has epic fingernails
She likes the word “Fuck”

All of these are good things in my book. Any witches down with dropping F-bombs are worth looking into.

That said, Ryen recently released her first book, a dark fantasy romance about a young woman who finds herself plucked from the world she thought was home and dropped into a magical new world where things are, shall we say, different. Normally, I’d look at a plot like that and yawn, but Ryen handles it beautifully and introduces her own twists to the genre. It’s true, there really isn’t anything new under the sun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a story and make it amazing with some sleight of hand and a little supernatural chicanery.

Which is exactly what one should expect from someone who calls herself “The Witch”. So, take that sentence about yawning and toss it away; that was me not paying full attention to the writer telling the tale. There’s new life in this story and a protagonist that isn’t going to headline a Disney princess story anytime soon.

And I think that’s what made it most interesting. I’ll be honest, fantasy and romance aren’t really my genres, but as the saying goes, a setting is just a setting. It’s the story that matters. Take “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus” and set them in video arcades or space stations and you won’t necessarily have arcade-punk and sci-fi, you’ll still have cracking good stories that just happen to have settings in space or 80s arcades.

By the way, arcade-punk is mine. Stay away from it.

And that’s how I started to view River. Rather than being just Fantasy Romance, it’s a good story that happens to be told in a Fantasy Romance setting. If you’re looking for a romantic triangle or a protagonist that doesn’t bend herself to immediately fit into her new surroundings or even a little magic, River is a good (and fun) book to look into. Even if you’re not necessarily into the genre. Perhaps the best part is, we’ve got more of River and her coterie coming down the pipe.

Does she have a secret life? One even she doesn’t know about?

Ever since seventeen-year-old River can remember, she’s always had the sense that she is in the wrong place—that SHE is wrong. Because of this, she battles a constant restlessness that consumes her. Running is the only thing that helps. Another reason she knows she’s wrong? She can see the light around a person. Everyone gives off energy and somehow River can see a bit of it. She instantly knows when someone’s good or bad. She just doesn’t know what a blurry light means, like the light around the scary new kid.

Upon seeing him, something inside her breaks open; a crack along some forgotten wall that frees a painful wave of raw emotion, faint visions, and an emerald-eyed boy that River doesn’t remember, but knows she should. After the new kid reveals his violent, supernatural side, River’s world explodes and everything she thought was real, fades away. Taken from her life in Georgia, River is forced into the dangerous, beautiful, self-sustaining, power-filled, live-in-the-trees-like-Robin-Hood Fair world that has been impatiently awaiting her return.